Last One Standing
by Lady Shockbox
Summary: A side fanfic to “Demotion of the Letter X” - In the aftermath of Planet X’s brutal destruction, one mech managed to survive. Except Soundwave is fairly certain that he’s the last one standing. Oneshot. Cybertron


For those of you who thought my love for Planet X and its survivors died, you are _horribly_ mistaken. I still love Soundwave and Sideways with a passion, but I've been so busy with other works that my stories for them had become otherwise abandoned. I went onto my desktop computer recently though - the one that permanently sits on my desk at my primary house - and I found a story with a Soundwave/Sideways pairing that I had been wanting to write. However, this particular oneshot was not originally that single story at all. I found that certain parts didn't fit in all too well with the main plot and they seemed out of place being a bit on the distracting side. After some editing, those particular parts were cut out from the main piece and fit together to make this little drabble. So, since I already had a story from Sideways' perspective about the aftermath of X's destruction, I thought it would be appropriate to have a fic from Soundwave's too. That said, here it is. Anyways, Transformers Cybertron is not mine in any form. To avoid confusion as well, the guy screaming at the end is Sideways. Concrit is loved, as always.

* * *

**On these hands and knees I'm crawlin'**

**With these broken wings I'm fallin'**

**Show me what it's like to be the last one standing **

_Savin' Me _- Nickelback

**i**

When one of the first explosions before the big bang went off however, he was one of the first to fall.

With a shriek, the general tumbled forward and smashed his chest plate against the ground with enough force to knock the air out of his intake pumps. The glass of his alternate-mode's custom painted cockpit cracked under the pressure, but the sound of splintering glass was drowned out by the skyscraper to his far left exploding. With a blast of fire and shrapnel, the building's top windows suddenly began to explode outward one floor at a time. In a state of wild and completely uncontrolled panic, thousands of civilians and soldiers alike turned to flee from the chaos suddenly erupting around them. He stayed put however. With terror making his spark clench tightly in its chamber, he stared at the now collapsing tower in horror. As it fell, another tower a mile or so away began to detonate like a megaton bomb as well. There was another explosion that he presumed to be on the other side of the mega-cannon, though he couldn't see past the suddenly sparking super weapon at the center of the city. A fourth tower, presuming the third explosion was from a tower falling as well, went off like a bomb and exploded outward from the base.

Soundwave sat up slowly with a deep rooted self-hatred making his spark flare painfully. He was too late. Now the Council's ridiculous plan to destroy Gigancion and his inability to convince them that they were going to end up destroying X instead would come at the highest price imaginable.

Scrambling to his feet, the gold and navy general staggered over to the freeway railing that overlooked the main part of the city. It was obvious now what had happened. The mega-cannon's energy stabilizers had malfunctioned because of the weapon's overall sheer mass and the skyscrapers the Council was using as energy sources couldn't keep up with the necessary power to run those stabilizers. The heat produced caused the machinery to overheat, explode, and cut all power to the stabilizers completely. Now that the stabilizers' energy to function was cut, they would cease to function completely. When _that_ happened…

His optics widened seeing the energy building up inside the cannon's turret spark, flicker, and then go dark. Aside from the screaming of people still in panic from the exploding towers and the whooshing of fire, all was silent. With desperation that neared hysteria, he silently begged to Primus and any higher power that it would _remain_ silent. As it was though, any higher gods that could have offered some blip of hope were either deaf or ignoring his prayers.

There was a low rumbling and then the light from the cannon's turret was back again, this time glowing a brilliant purplish red and flaring like a demon sun spawned from the Pitt. With a shrieking whirr, the mass of super matter was sucked straight back into the cannon with a blinding light. It ate the city whole and then there was a massive detonation larger than anything Soundwave could have prepared himself for. Another rumbling growl tore itself through the air and, when the light died down somewhat, Soundwave could see why. The cannon had exploded and was sending debris out in all directions at a speed he clocked to be somewhere around eight hundred miles an hour. Where he was standing now, it would take no less than ten seconds for the huge chunks of shrapnel to strike and kill him. A shockwave followed behind, making the ground explode upward like a tsunami of fire and utter destruction.

X was doomed. The way the explosion was riding outward from the source, the shockwave would detonate every major fuel or energy source on the face of the planet. There wouldn't even _be_ an aftermath. There wouldn't be _anything_. It didn't stop him from screaming though.

"_RUN!_" His voice cracked even when he turned on his heel to bolt. Inside his chest compartment, Laserbeak tried his best to keep calm and he compressed himself as tight as he could within his master. As Soundwave turned to run, he caught sight of the other X members who didn't initially run turn on their heels to bolt. Whether or not they heard him as one of their generals commanding them or the explosion rushing at them was beyond him. That was when the shrapnel finally started to shoot overhead. Soundwave saw a grunt soldier out of the corner of his vision try to turn with the intention of running away before a jagged slate of metal three times larger then a transportation jet slam into the unsuspecting warrior. Soundwave knew the collision killed him instantly. To his left, a somewhat smaller slate of titanium slammed into another grunt. It ran the young mech straight through and the body was flung forward from the blow. Soundwave couldn't tell if he instantly died or not. He hoped for the nameless soldier's sake that he did.

Almost directly beside him, to his right again, a femme suddenly stumbled and fell with a scream. Soundwave stopped himself short of sunning past her to duck down in an attempt to help.

It saved his life. Not two clicks after he fell forward to drop to her level, a huge piece of the actual cannon zoomed no more than three feet over his head. Had he been standing, it would have hit him with enough force to rip his body in half from the belly up. The cannon turret's headpiece slammed into the ground, skidded for a few feet, and then lifted back up into the air. Most people who had been unfortunate enough to be caught underneath it were killed instantly. With a pang of sickening horror though, Soundwave picked up agonized screaming from the crater where the cannon head fell. It made him want to vomit.

The femme was sobbing and trying to haul herself to her feet. A low ranked grunt, she had the same body mold as the other two mechs who had been killed moments beforeBlack with orange highlights mixed in and an orange facemask to top it off. She was shaking too hard to get up by herself though, so Soundwave roughly stood as quickly as his own wobbly legs allowed before grabbing her by the shoulder and jerking her to her feet.

His voice shook with terror and it took every once of his military persona to keep it from breaking. "You run and you don't stop for _anything_ girl! _Dig it!_"

She looked up at him a split click before turning away and doing as she was told. For that split moment, he was able to look deep enough past her nearly opaque visor to see the moisture stinging the edges of her optics. She was afraid and terrified for her life, but she was wise enough to know just as much as Soundwave did about their fates. She understood that no one would survive this explosion and the war with Gigancion that they had struggled to win for so long would go in vain. She would ever be able to retire from the military with honors to have sparklings and be bonded. Everything they had done was a waste and, ultimately, that meant her existence would be as well.

She was gone a moment later, her retreating form becoming smaller and less pronounced as she joined the rampant stampede of Transformers trying to flee. Several tried to take off into the air attempting to fly away, though none of them got very far with the debris tearing through the air and slicing all of them in half. Even though he never even knew as much as the femme's name, he hoped desperately that her demise would be painless. He knew she was bound to die just like the rest of their planet. As it was, he never saw her again.

Laserbeak suddenly started shrieking inside Soundwave's chest compartment, clawing and scraping with desperation. The drone suddenly channeled his radar through Soundwave's - the one the general had been ignoring while he saved the femme - and that was when Soundwave detected a huge slab of metal coming right at him. He ducked and managed to save himself from decapitation, though it didn't stop the edge of the flying debris from conking him hard on the back of the head. Instantly unconscious, the offline mech was thrown forward just as the freeway ground collapsed. Leading into an abyss of darkness, Soundwave fell moments before the shockwave roared over his head.

Then there was the final explosion. For a long time, it stayed dark.

**ii**

When he first began to become aware of things again, he was positive he was dead. Except his computers were bleeping annoyingly that he wasn't.

With a whimper, he onlined his optics and tried to focus on his surroundings blearily. Alarms, all high pitched and audio straining, buzzed in with an irritating fever and he muted them with another groan. His optics stung with tears caused by the microscopic cracks running over their blue glass surfaces. Either way though, he wouldn't have been able to see regardless as to whether or not his optics were functioning at full capacity. The darkness that shrouded him was so deep and inky that it was impossible to see even if he used his fancy, high-tech night vision that he recently had installed. When his computer beeped that it was destroyed though, he found himself not caring much for it anyway. It was a neat little gizmo, sure, but it was not necessary for absolute survival.

Then it dawned on him.

With a grunt, he tried to angle his head so he could look down towards his chest. Something heavy lay pressed again his back to keep him from moving too much, though it didn't sop him from eventually catching sight of his battered chest. If there was anything that he found necessary at the moment, it was making sure his partner was alright.

His voice was a harsh rasp. "Yo, Laserbeak? Hit a high note if you're still kicking in there."

There was not an immediate response. For a brief click, Soundwave was momentarily horrified that his partner was dead. Reassurance came a moment later though. A weak, graveling coo from inside his chest compartment issued forth in a muffled tone. Laserbeak was alive if not a bit shaken.

Alive.

…They were _alive_.

Soundwave didn't believe it. _Couldn't_ believe it. Nevertheless, although it was somewhat static ridden, information and data still displayed themselves in the corner of his vision. It was rumored that Transformers would no longer have to deal with the sight of the displayed readings in death, but he _still_ couldn't come to terms with the fact that he was seemingly alive. No one, not even him, should have been able to survive that explosion. Either way though, he was in enough pain that his body believed what his diagnostics systems was reading. He was very much living and so was Laserbeak.

He strained to sit up. Rubble - metals and other assorted bits of heavy debris - started to fall of his back in rising clouds of dust that made his already strained intake pump sputter. He couched with a rasp and, on all fours, he tried to look past the darkness. He couldn't. It didn't stop his voice from trying to pierce it, however.

"Yo? Anyone able to lay a beat on me out there?"

There was no response. Aside from the deafening roar of silence and the clinking of debris as they fell off his back, there was absolutely nothing to indicate that anyone had heard him.

So, if he _was_ alive, then where was everyone else? Another horrified thought that he might be the only survivor of the horrific explosion that no doubt destroyed X was quickly abandoned. There was no way he could possibly be the last one alive. The odds of that happening were one to a billion. Even though Soundwave was not trusting of numbers in any context before, he certainly was going to make himself be now. In no way could there be a chance that he was the only one to survive. Primus wouldn't be that cruel.

Soundwave opened his chest compartment and Laserbeak got the hint to crawl out. Forcing himself to roll out of his master's chest, he fell to the ground with a thud and slowly unfolded himself. Laserbeak's form was merely a shadow against the darkness and Soundwave wouldn't have been able to make out the bird drone's form if he was not squawking every few moments. With a shakiness that Soundwave would have found hilarious if the situation was not so serious, the hawk stood up and looked towards his master with his red eyes beaming with adoration. The bird was glad his companion was alive if anything.

"Me to you too, bud," Soundwave said softly. He lifted his right hand to rub the top of the black condor's head.

He had misjudged his own lack of strength. His body still suffering from minor shellshock, his left arm couldn't support his weight and it buckled. With a groan, Soundwave fell forward and would have fallen right on top of Laserbeak of the bird hadn't hastily scuffled out of the way. With a crash that echoed throughout the dark confinement like the initial explosion from the first destroyed energy tower, Soundwave fell in a heap that would have been undignified for a general of his standard. Considering X was most definitely destroyed though, the high-tech jet couldn't bring himself to care. Screw the Council and their damned, corrupt military.

Laserbeak started screaming. His squawks were panicked and pitched in such a frantic tone that it made a headache throb inside Soundwave's temples. On top of that, his internal radio activated when he collapsed. Loud, now annoying and not so much entertaining custom techno boomed from his chest and Soundwave deactivated it with a groan. He was glad at most it worked - he loved music just as much as he did Laserbeak - but he was not in the mood to deal with a migraine right about now. Laserbeak was still shrieking and Soundwave weakly moved his head to get a look at his hawk.

Tears stung the bird's scarlet optics while he flapped about in front of his master. It was no surprise actually, Laserbeak had been reduced to things like this before when he was afraid of being separated from Soundwave for an extended period of time, but how distraught the drone looked now…

He was afraid of loosing the only mech who ever cared for him.

Soundwave winced with pain trying to reach his right hand back out to rub the top of the bird's head. Laserbeak stopped jumping around immediately and his shrieks were reduced to choked squawks. He nuzzled Soundwave's palm like a lifeline.

Soundwave chuckled lightly. "I ain't goin' anywhere, brother. It'll take more than a sore chassis to keep me off the dance floor."

Laserbeak gave a meek coo in response.

Soundwave turned his sights away from his companion and strained to sit up again. His arms protested by throbbing in mercilessly in pain. It didn't stop him regardless. In a matter of moments he was on all fours again. His arms threatened to give under the strain but, either way, he managed to keep from toppling over again. With as steady of a voice as he could manage, he croaked a command for his online systems. "Computer, access headlights. If I'm the only one upbeat, I'd probably better start searching the tracks for any other tunes who survived."

"_Acknowledged,"_ his computer responded in a feminine monotone. The lights attached to his helmet flickered to life.

What he saw made him scream with horror.

**iii**

Smoke rose from the hundreds of miles that was now X's final resting place.

It had taken him ten cycles at most to claw his way out of the cavern he and Laserbeak awoke inside, but it a worse picture outside in comparison to what was within. Activating his headlights had been a grave mistake to any hope Soundwave had for finding survivors like him. When he first activated the lights, seeing all the shattered and torn bodies of fellow X members was enough to break him in every sense possible. All the corpses were so horridly mangled that, after when he calmed down from his screaming fit, he wondered if they were even bodies at _all_. A brief exploration of the thirty or so shells that shared the cavern with him were enough to convince the ex-general. They _were_ all bodies, smashed and ripped apart by the explosion that destroyed their world.

The surface had been no better. The devastation reached on and on for _miles_.

Soundwave looked around at what was now the destroyed and desolated remains of his home. He had been on the surface for three megacycles from what he could last remember, though there was a chance he had been wandering around aimlessly looking for any traces of survivors for longer. Bodies - at least they used to be bodies and were mostly now reduced to limbless and torn robot - lay scattered at his feet as he gazed around dazedly at the brutal explosion's outcome. He had set Laserbeak off again about twenty cycles ago to look for anyone who survived while he continued to wander around like a street mech. Considering X was completely gone however, the comparison to being homeless was more accurate than not.

He remembered begging to the Council to reconsider starting the war with the giant planet. They didn't have the resources to be picking fights as it was, but something had screamed at Soundwave's gut that something was not right about starting this war. The Council hadn't listened to him besides that and they had tried to convince him things would be quite alright. He _wished_ he had continued arguing with them. He wished they would have _listened_.

Soundwave remembered it was just that morning becoming convinced that X would be doomed if he didn't do something to stop the Council. That morning, the day X was going to fire the cannon at Gigancion, was the same day that all the bird drones on the planet fled without warning. All with the exception of _his_ hawk drone.

Laserbeak suddenly cawed from somewhere far off and caused the dusty, battered jet to whip around in surprise. The drone looked like a dark archangel coming for all those who perished in the massive detonation as his appearance in the sky only appeared darker with the setting sun playing off his armor. The beautiful sun would have been an astonishing thing to look at on any other day with the clouds a mixed hue of pink and orange. Soundwave could just imagine what it would be like if X had won the war. The planet would be theirs and they could stare at this sight every night. He could just hear sparklings running about and playing in the brilliant luminescence of the setting sun before they grew tired and sat to watch the star set until night finally turned the sky dark. How long ago had he last _seen_ an X sparkling that was created by a parent and not a machine?

Laserbeak reappeared in his master's sights much more clearly as Soundwave returned back to reality. The hawk was flying full speed towards him with a rather peppy gleam in his optics. This was odd because the hawk had been just as morbid about loosing his home just as much as Soundwave was…

A survivor maybe?

The hawk landed on Soundwave's shoulder with his sharp talons griping. He cawed loudly a momnt later, fidgeting about flapping his wings rapidly. Soundwave had to pet the bird calmly to get him to calm down. _"Whoa_ there buddy. Chill out and press repeat on that last beat."

In all honesty, he really despised the way he talked. His voice was a trademark among his comrades seeing as he had two vocalizer units instead of one. Although his real voice was unit one, unit two could be willfully changed to sound like anyone he had heard before. It made useful in certain situations when you were deceiving enemies over the comm with the voice of their own fellow soldiers in arms. Among that, it also left the opinion on others that his voice had a singsong feel to it.

That was not what he hated though. His creator had been a vagabond, going about his way on X and drifting from place to place, and he had permanently programmed Soundwave with a rather uncanny habit of using slang and improper terms. Although it had greatly affected his chances of becoming a great general in the military, a personal goal of his since he was planning to definitely _not_ wander around begging for the rest of his life, he still managed to get there without much of a problem. He had been looked down upon as an uneducated mech when he first joined the military, true, but he showed them who was uneducated for _sure_. His size allowed him to become one of the greater warriors among his fellow trainees and his brilliance was to be greatly admired. After he got his rank as general, he became a major hit. Everyone knew him for his voice and his publicity among his peers made his rank rise even further. He had only been two promotions away from having the choice of becoming a member of the Council before X… well, X was destroyed.

No one could really ever tell what he was saying unless he slowed down and broke it down for them though. That was why he hated how he talked. Maybe if he had tried to calmly reword his phrases with the Council instead of going off into an incoherent rage trying to convince them going to war was a terrible mistake…

Laserbeak leapt off his shoulder and was circling in the air around Soundwave's head. Soundwave remembered when he had first been allowed to get a bird drone of his own. Many mechs who had the hawks usually put them into subspace when they were in their capsule-modes, but Soundwave had decided he wouldn't do that. Subspace was useful, yes, but if you were caught by an enemy stronghold and had your hands tied, there'd be no way of releasing the hawk to help you. That and Soundwave always thought subspace as being uncomfortable. If he was going to have a drone of his own, he was at least going to make sure it was happy with him. He even had had his chest customized to open and close to fit the bird inside when his partner was in capsule-mode. Others had looked at him funny when he said he did this but he didn't care. Drones were often treated like slaves and undignified minions to their master's and he was not going to make his partner a slave. His partner was going to be his equal. That was final.

When he and several other general officers had been taken up to the drone coop by the drone caretaker, Soundwave had been gaping behind his facemask. The room with the cages for the bird drones was _massive_. Enclosed, bared hutches were embedded right into the wall and were stacked high upon each other, one or two birds per hutch at a time. Other black hawks were flying free above them while they occasionally glanced down at the bipedal forms below. Soundwave and the other officers were soon led to another room, smaller this time, and it only had a few coops and only a few drones flying about. Their choices. Others who had his rank had chosen the stronger drones with broader wingspans and impressive talon displays to be their cohorts. Soundwave would have done the same - he had found a female programmed unit with strong wing units and a powerful body - but the drone that caught his attention also had a rare silver paintjob. Bird drones were purchased by points that general's had, said points were received from even higher ranking officials who gave them out for completing a certain task, and no one else but him had enough points for it.

He would have purchased the hawk too if he hadn't caught the sight of Laserbeak in the far corner of the room.

One could say the smaller, weaker eagle was the runt of the litter. It was clearly and painfully obvious the condor had been put together in a rushed amount of time and with slightly cheaper metals. Its wings were banged up and it was visibly scuffed from possibly being picked on by the tougher birds. When Soundwave asked about it, the caretaker told him it was to be smelted and recycled for new drones because no one wanted it. His mind was abruptly made up.

Dubbing him Laserbeak, Soundwave immediately took it upon himself to choose the weaker hawk. The caretaker and the other generals in the room looked at him like he was crazy and they asked him why he'd take such a weaker, much more useless drone instead of the silver one. Soundwave didn't answer them. He had taken the smaller bird in his arms, earning himself a surprised and relieved squeak from the winged form, and walked out without another word spoken. He found out sometime later that the other silver hawk died of an unknown cause some days later. By that time though, Laserbeak had warmed up to his new master, sitting on his shoulder looking weak and frightened of everyone who approached him. Eventually, the hawk became more confident of himself as Soundwave worked with him further. The two of them had been very much inseparable since.

Suddenly, the condor darted off towards the northeast destruction site. The light from the red sun played off Laserbeak's dark features and Soundwave, taking the hint the condor wanted him to follow, chased the bird from the ground before jumping high and shifting to his alternate mode. His vehicle mode, a brilliant and impressive X designed jet, stuck out like a sore digit considering the vast destruction and slaughter below. Occasionally, a rogue hawk would fly by and caw madly at him and Laserbeak before darting out of sight again.

"_They don't have masters anymore, so they're all going to become feral," _Soundwave thought absently.

Many if not _all_ of the hawks had survived because, Soundwave realized, they _knew_ X was going to die. He had seen Laserbeak go into a wild panic the morning before X's cannon blew and realized that something was wrong. The drones were often looked as being mindless creatures with no feelings, but what was overlooked was their ability to have extraordinary senses beyond what any Transformer on X could possibly comprehend. They were brilliant animals and, come the Pitt or high water, Soundwave found himself not surprised that they would react to a disaster before it even took place.

Soundwave had noticed the other hawks behaving oddly in a similar manner Laserbeak had, though they were going as far as to flee from their masters. The most highly trained condors never returned after being called back and it was then that Soundwave realized that something was terribly wrong. Even though Laserbeak didn't leave him like the rest of the bird population was doing to their masters, he _still_ knew something was wrong. It was early afternoon when he left the officer building where he was quartered for the final time. The cannon. It had to have been that damned giant cannon X had been putting its resources into to destroy Gigancion. He had been running, no, _racing_ towards the cannon site to make them stop the firing the huge weapon. He would do so forcibly if he had to, regardless if it meant that he would be stripped of his rank. If they fired it… if the cannon withheld even the smallest glitch and _backfired_…

They _did_ activate the cannon and, true to word, it _did_ backfire. Flying on X had been made illegal for that day and, if he tried to fly to where the cannon was stationed, he would have been immediately arrested without regard to his rank. Being forced to run made him too late to stop the Council from flicking the switch to X's own apocalypse.

Soundwave returned back to the present when Laserbeak squawked loudly.

Bodies, mechanical parts, and rubble almost glowed red in the setting sun's light just as Laserbeak swooped down. The drone moved with such a grace that he have been admired by an amateur drone trainer had it not been for the hawk's clumsily landing. The bird stumbled slightly and would have toppled over onto his narrow chest had his wings not spread out to keep his balance. Still, he managed to stumble again while walking towards whatever he wanted his master to see. That was when he did fall forward, landing on his chest and flapping about wildly. Laserbeak's persistence was always something to look up upon though. He continued forward despite recovering from his landing before gesturing to a small, freshly dug hole. The debris was piled about higher here indicating that there was a cavern below.

Soundwave landed as lightly as he could. The charred ground that he stepped down on crumbled under his feet with a unique sound and he could have sworn he heard a metallic piece of steel crumble with it. Soundwave was almost tempted to look down, but the possibility he was steeping on part of a burned corpse rendered that idea absurd. The ex-general diverted his gaze down at Laserbeak as his own shadow cast over the bird, the sun glittering off his back and etching his darkened silhouette into the ground. Laserbeak noticed he had received his master's attention and he poked his head into the hole. He squawked at whoever it was that he had seemingly found.

_If_ that person was alive.

This had been a repeat of several occasions that took place since they started looking for any survivors. Laserbeak would fly about while Soundwave searched from the ground and, if Laserbeak found anything interesting, he would return to his master. Unfortunately, Laserbeak now _officially_ had the uncanny habit not being to tell the difference between an alive mech and a dead one who just so happened to be in one piece. Soundwave had come across six bodies that happened to survive most of the blast and, nearly loosing his cool with every body uncovered, he would burn the bodies for a proper burial. Every single X member, weather or not a grunt soldier or high ranking superior, needed a proper farewell for a death they didn't deserve. It could have been prevented as well maybe, though only if he had been more persistent with convincing the Council to recede and withdraw from the war. In a sense, everything felt as though it was his fault.

Everyone was dead… and it was because of _him_…

It was a silly thought, though the navy and gold tinted mech couldn't help feeling that way anyways. Soundwave ignored the thought as best as his tired mind could and moved closer to the hole so his shadow cast itself over it. Bracing himself from the more than likely silence he would receive as a reply, he called out. "Hey! Someone kickin' on down there!" He waited.

…No response. It had to have been another body.

"_I really _am_ the only survivor, aren't I?"_

He sighed despairingly, all hope for him fading like the rapidly setting sun. His visor abruptly darkened as a deep realization that he would be alone - though he had Laserbeak, it still was not the same as to having a mech of your same structure with you - and his wings dropped to a depressing angle. If he _was_ the last one, there was no place for him to go. If no one remained, he was more than tempted take on the giant bastards of Gigancion by himself. If he couldn't take on the Council, he would satisfy himself by destroying the next closest thing. In this case, it was the robots of the Planet X had been at war with. It was a suicide mission at best, but he could not bring himself care. They would _die_ for this. He would make sure of it. Even if it meant losing his own spark.

The problem was there was no one to stand beside him. He was alone.

"Come on, Laserbeak. 'Nother false alarm…" He felt about ready to give into his tiredness and bubbling emotions that rarely showed through his always cheerful personality. He was more than ready to drop to the ground screaming at the sky and cursing the ones who destroyed his life to a million deaths in the Pitt. About ready to do so, he moved to leave, turning not so sharply on his heel as a commanding general would do so. Nothing left to command, there was no need to pretend he was still one. Dust kicked itself up from his abrupt turn and his shadow left covering the hole. He could barley register Laserbeak looking down the hole disappointingly and decided not to look down for himself. He couldn't stand seeing another body. He couldn't stand standing on the rubble that was once his home world.

It was then he heard the pained cries and Laserbeak's happy cawing of sheer joy. Soundwave nearly started crying in pure joy himself. He'd never been happier his entire life at what he heard.

"Help! I'm a survivor of X! Please don't go! Help! Please!"

Deep in the back recesses of his processor, he silently thanked Primus that he wasn't the last one standing.

**Fin**


End file.
